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Man from Sheffield repeatedly raped and physically and sexually abused daughters in case with echoes of Josef Fritzl

Local authorities in Lincolnshire and Sheffield today apologised to members of a family for failing to protect them from their father, who repeatedly raped and physically and sexually abused them over a period of 35 years.

The unreserved apology came in the aftermath of the publication of an executive summary of a serious case review by the Lincolnshire and Sheffield safeguarding children board of the family.

The 57-year-old man, from Sheffield ? who cannot be identified ? was jailed for life in November 2008 after one of his daughters alleged incest.

He repeatedly impregnated two daughters, and nine children were born. The case has echoes of that of Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned and raped his daughter.

The man admitted 25 rapes and four indecent assaults, with the attacks beginning in 1980 and continuing daily until 2008.

If the daughters resisted they were beaten, kicked and held by the flames of a gas fire.

Between 1975 and 2008 the family came into contact with 28 different agencies, involving more than 100 professionals.

The 39-page executive summary of the serious case review, written by Professor Pat Cantrill and spanning 35 years, found numerous opportunities to intervene "were missed individually and collectively".

The review made 128 recommendations for improving understanding, practice, procedures and training into intra-familial abuse.

It also recommended improvements in sharing information, record-keeping and support for professionals. All have been implemented or are being implemented.

Chris Cook, the independent chair of the Lincolnshire and Sheffield safeguarding children board, said: "We are genuinely sorry. We should have protected you.

"This is a tragic and complicated case. The man responsible, who intimidated and frightened his family, was convicted of multiple counts of rape and is serving a life sentence."

Local authorities, police and health organisations also gave assurances that changes in safeguarding systems, process and practices now better protected families from abuse.

Prime minister announces pay freeze for doctors, dentists and hospital consultants as well as senior managers across most of the public sector

Gordon Brown drew the election battle lines around the economy today, announcing a freeze on top public sector pay and declaring he had the strength of character to lead the country to recovery.

Brown stressed that the country was at a "crossroads" and faced "crucial decisions" in the months ahead. He warned that "ideologically-driven" Tory plans for cuts risked tipping the country back into recession.

The prime minister said he would save £3bn by freezing pay for doctors, dentists, and hospital consultants as well as senior managers across most of the public sector.

Brown also used his address to confirm that the budget will be in two weeks' time, on 24 March, leading to speculation that he will announce the date of the election on 6 April.

Speaking at Thomson Reuters in Canary Wharf, the same venue where the Tory leader, David Cameron, attacked Labour's record on the economy last week, Brown said the "resolve" and urgency felt during the 2008 banking crisis needed to be displayed again now.

He admitted that in hindsight it was now clear just how close the world economy came to "economic meltdown".

The economy remained in "choppy waters", said Brown as he cautioned against any belief that the recovery would automatically continue.

"In my view we are nearly there ... but there is nothing preordained or automatic about the upturn either here or abroad," he said.

Brown turned the tables on those who accuse him of lacking character by insisting that the past 18 months had been a period demanding the "greatest test of character" as the country was brought through a "dreadful" economic storm.

The prime minister said: "I have heard people say it is about policy and I have heard other people say it is about character. But I don't think you can separate the two. It is for other people to judge.

"But I believe that character is not about telling people what they want to hear but about telling them what they need to know. It is about having the courage to set out your mission and take the tough decisions and stick to them without being blown off course, even when the going is difficult."

He told the audience that tough decisions needed to be made to keep the economy on course to recovery.

He said: "We face crucial decisions. The stakes are high. We dare not risk the recovery. We are weathering the storm and now is no time to turn back. We will hold to our course and will complete our mission."

This included a "disciplined approach" to pay and benefits right across the public sector.

Speaking on the day that the senior salary review bodies publish their recommendations for public sector pay rises, Brown announced he intended to freeze the pay of senior staff in the civil service, the military, the judiciary, the health service and the pay of consultants.

The prime minister also announced a freeze in the pay of doctors and dentists, though a written statement issued later clarified that this only referred to contractor dentists and GPs ? those that run practices and may employ other people.

Salaried GPs and dentists ? those employed by hospitals or other GP/dentist contractors ? will receive a 1% pay rise.\Brown said that the government remained committed to halving Britain's record £178bn deficit within four years and said the curbs on public sector pay would save more than £3bn by 2013-14.

The government has decided to accept some, but not all, of the review body's recommendations.

It ignored a recommendation to increase the minimum pay for senior civil servants by £2,300 to £61,500 and has also rejected a recommendation to increase the pay for NHS managers earning less than £80,000 by 2.25%.

The announcement is likely to provoke fury among public sector unions just days after it was announced that MPs would see an automatic rise of 1.5% in their pay.

The FDA, which represents senior civil servants, described the decision as an "insult" to hardworking staff.

Brown reminded his audience that he had already ruled that government ministers would eschew pay increases of any kind next year.

The prime minister also stressed that, while the worst of the recession was over, the economic recovery remained "fragile" and could be undermined if spending cuts were pushed through too quickly.

Brown emphasised the need to ensure the recovery was balanced and sustainable on a global basis as he called for the G20 to inject "new urgency into the delivery of the international agreements we have reached".

He said: "I believe that around the world we have to rediscover that sense of urgency and collective ambition that guided us a year ago. For it is our choices ? and the wisdom, resolve and judgments we bring to bear in making them, at both a national and global level ? that will determine whether we secure a lasting recovery and indispensable reforms to safeguard our economic future."

Vincent Cable, the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman, said: "Gordon Brown's speech shows he is leading with a weak hand.

"It's very difficult to see how the man who claimed to have abolished boom and bust can campaign on his stewardship of the economy after the greatest bust for decades. The only reason he is, of course, is because the Conservatives are even worse."

He added: "The budget must clearly spell out where Labour intend to make spending cuts in order to tackle the budget deficit."

Police had asked Raja Naqqash Saeed to stay as a witness in investigation into five-year-old Sahil's kidnapping

The father of the kidnapped British boy Sahil Saeed has flown back to the UK from Pakistan, according to officials.

Raja Naqqash Saeed's return was in defiance of Pakistani wishes that he remained there, according to the BBC.

Sahil, five, from Oldham in Greater Manchester, was abducted on Thursday last week after robbers broke into his grandmother's house in Jhelum. He and his father were on the last day of a two-week holiday.

Pakistani officials and police have suggested that Sahil's relatives may have been involved in the kidnapping. On Sunday Pakistan's interior minister, Rehman Malik, said "somebody who was very close to the family" must have been involved.

Sahil's family have reacted angrily to the claims. His father has not been named as a suspect but the BBC reported that Malik said police wanted him to stay in Pakistan as a witness.

George Sherriff, a spokesman for the British embassy in Islamabad, said: "We can confirm that Sahil's father has returned to the UK and we continue to give him consular assistance."

Mr Saeed said after a meeting with Malik on Sunday that he was "fully confident" his son would be found. "As far as I'm concerned I don't know the person, who they are, where they come from," he said.

The robbers made a ransom demand of £100,000 when they snatched Sahil and it is understood the demand has since been repeated in phone calls to his father. The Pakistani authorities have contacted Interpol for help with the investigation after reports the kidnappers called from international numbers, including a number in Spain.

Judgments from schools inspected last term lead teachers' unions to accuse Ofsted of 'moving the goalposts'

One in seven secondary schools inspected last term was branded inadequate under a new regime honing in on teaching quality and pupil progress, the schools inspectorate, Ofsted, revealed today.

Only half of all the 2,140 schools visited were judged to be better than satisfactory. Teachers' unions attacked the inspectorate for "moving the goalposts" as the overall proportion deemed inadequate more than doubled, rising from 4% to 10%.

Ofsted said the figures did not reflect the quality of provision across all the country, because it had focused more on weaker schools.

But a quarter of the schools it inspected between September and December last year got a lower grade than at their previous assesment. Another quarter improved and half stayed the same.

Of those 2,109 that had been ranked before, 10% were judged inadequate. Under the old regime, 5% of them had received that grade.

The chief inspector, Christine Gilbert, said the new framework was about "raising expectations". But Chris Keates, general secretary of the teaching union NASUWT, said the results were misleading.

"The outcome that more schools would be deemed inadequate following the introduction of the new framework was entirely predictable," she said. "It is misleading and inaccurate to claim that Ofsted has 'raised the bar'.

"In reality, what Ofsted has done yet again is to move the goalposts. It is the equivalent of preparing to play a cricket match and turning up to find you are expected to do the high jump.

"Ofsted is losing the confidence of schools, staff and parents by building an inspection system on constantly shifting sands."

Good and outstanding schools are now inspected less frequently, while inspectors spend twice as long monitoring lessons.

Gilbert said: "These results are what we expected, given the sharper focus of the new inspection framework and the sample of schools inspected in the first few months.

"We introduced this new framework because we believe the upward trend in the quality of provision in recent years has masked wide variations.

"We wanted to concentrate more resources on the less-effective schools, particularly those with pupils in danger of underachieving, and offer clear recommendations for improvement.

"The new inspections have been designed to help schools improve so that children and young people get the best possible education.

"By focusing on weaker schools, introducing more classroom observation, giving more detailed recommendations and emphasising progress, the quality of teaching, and learning and overall achievement of all pupils, Ofsted is helping raise standards and promote improvement for all groups of children."

The Liberal Democrats said the results were not good enough. The party's schools spokesman, David Laws, said: "Labour has had 13 years to get a grip on education, but thousands of children still attend schoolthat are not considered to be providing good standards.

"In spite of the controversy about whether these figures can be compared with earlier years, the bottom line is that half of schools inspected were not good enough. We need more well-led and properly funded schools if we are to address the disadvantages faced by so many young people in Britain."

Former MI5 head Eliza Manningham-Buller denies knowing about mistreatment of detainees. Didn't she read the papers?

To be fair to Britain's security services, the gathering of intelligence can be the most difficult of jobs.

The claim on Wednesday from the former head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, that the US hid from the UK security services the torture they were meting out to the Muslim men they had labelled terrorists, comes as a bit of surprise. In a lecture given in the Palace of Westminster, she related:

"I said to my staff, 'Why is he [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] talking?' because our experience of Irish prisoners and terrorists was that they never said anything ?
"They said the Americans say he is very proud of his achievements when questioned about it. It wasn't actually until after I retired that I read that, in fact, he had been waterboarded 160 times."

She went on to claim that "The Americans were very keen that people like us did not discover what they were doing."

It did not require a high degree of James Bond-style espionage for MI5 to realise ? much earlier than she says it did ? that Guantánamo and other US sites were places where torture was practised.

Before her retirement in 2007, then, all that Manningham-Buller needed to have been doing was read a decent newspaper or use a web search, either of which would have produced headlines and articles that would have pricked the curiosity of even the dullest of minds. Never mind those who see themselves as among the sharpest and brightest.

So, for the benefit of the former intelligence chief, the list of reporting of disturbing allegations and evidence of torture employed by the US and its allies in the war on terror starts here ? but please add your own in the thread below:

Guardian: Father fears for son held by US in Afghanistan, 10 February 2003

Guardian: Briton held as terror suspect says CIA threatened torture, 4 October 2003

Guardian: Officials 'knew of beatings at Guantánamo', 15 May 2004

Observer: US guards 'filmed beatings' at terror camp, 16 May 2004

New York Times: Threats and responses: The interrogations; Account of plot sets off debate over credibility, 17 June 2004

Guardian: US abuse could be war crime, 5 August 2004

Times: Britons accuse US Government of 'torture' at Guantánamo Bay, 28 October 2004

Times: Guantánamo report reveals 'torture', 1 December 2004

Guardian: Guantánamo Briton 'in handcuff torture', 2 January 2005

Independent: My nightmare of torture and assault, by Briton held in Guantánamo, 30 January 2005

Washington Post: Va. terror suspect testifies to torture, 20 October 2005

Guardian: Hunger strikers allege 'force feed torture' at Guantánamo, 21 October 2005

Guardian: Torture claims 'forced US to cut terror charges', 25 November 2005

ABC News: History of an interrogation technique: Waterboarding, 29 November 2005

Telegraph: Torture law victory for terror suspects, 9 December 2005

Guardian: US accused of using gangster tactics over terror suspects, 25 January 2006

Washington Post: Guantánamo force-feeding tactics are called torture, 1 March 2006

Guardian: Evidence against terror suspect extracted by torture, hearing told, 10 May 2006

Times: Bush admits that terrorist suspects were held in secret prison network, 7 September 2006

Guardian: Cheney condemned for backing water torture, 28 October 2006

Foreign Office officials believe elements of Taliban ready to talk but fears grow of long Afghan conflict, and growing casualties

Britain will today urge the Afghan government to put more effort into the pursuit of peace talks amid fears that the war could be prolonged ? and more British lives lost ? as a result of incompetence and lack of political will in Kabul.

A speech to be delivered in the US by the foreign secretary, David Miliband, will reflect growing anxiety in London that President Hamid Karzai's professed desire for a political solution has not been backed up by any serious planning or concrete proposals.

Unless more pressure is put on the Afghan government, some British officials predict that Karzai's proposed loya jirga, or grand peace council, due at the end of next month, will be little more than a PR stunt. "My argument today is that now is the time for the Afghans to pursue a political settlement with as much vigour and energy as we are pursuing the military and civilian effort," Miliband will say at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, according to a text of the address seen by the Guardian.

British officials believe that significant Taliban leaders are ready to start talking about a political settlement in which they would sever ties with al-Qaida and put down weapons in return for a role in politics. But there is also concern that opportunities to open a preliminary dialogue are being lost, and that the conflict, which has already cost more than 270 British lives, is being intensified by Kabul's inefficiency and corruption.

"The Afghans must own, lead and drive such political engagement," Miliband will say in his speech. "It will be a slow, gradual process. But the insurgents will want to see international support.

"International engagement, for example under the auspices of the UN, may ultimately be required."

Karzai presented a paper on political reconciliation at a conference held by Gordon Brown in London in January. But officials who saw it, and subsequent Afghan proposals on peace talks, have variously described them as "empty" and "a C-team effort".

Gerard Russell, at the Carr Centre for Human Rights at Harvard University, said: "We had a look at the Afghan government's thinking on reconciliation, but we haven't seen a concrete proposal or a workable methodology."

Russell, a former political adviser to the UN mission in Afghanistan, added: "There is a talk about having a loya jirga. But what is a loya jirga going to do? On its own, its not going to achieve anything."

The growing alarm at the lack of political initiative in Kabul comes at a time when back-channel contacts with the Taliban have also run into trouble, paradoxically as a result of a Taliban arrest hailed as a triumph last month.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the head of the Taliban's military operations seized in Karachi by Pakistani intelligence agents, had taken part in tentative and secret contacts with Saudi intermediaries last year.

One participant in those talks told the Guardian that Baradar's arrest had been "a huge blow" to the peace effort.

Britain's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, has been sent to Kabul as caretaker ambassador, with the primary mission of trying to inject more substance into the loya jirga planned for 29 April. Tomorrow, Miliband will also call for a direct international role in managing the peace process. Miliband's speech also carries a message for Washington.

While Britain's Foreign Office believes work on peace talks should begin straight away and be pushed behind the scenes by the Obama administration, most US officials, and some British generals, question whether such negotiations would produce results before Taliban morale has been depleted by the military surge.

"There is an important US audience for this," a British official said. "Nobody wants a PR stunt in Kabul that doesn't lead anywhere."

US woman accused of plotting to murder unnamed Swede and raising money for her cause on the internet

An American woman who called herself Jihad Jane has been charged over an alleged plot to murder a Swedish man.

Colleen Renee LaRose, 46, from Philadelphia, is also accused of conspiracy to provide support to terrorists, making false statements and attempted identity theft.

Irish police yesterday arrested seven people over an apparent plot to kill Lars Vilks, a Swedish cartoonist who had a bounty put on his head after depicting the prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog ? though Vilks has not been named as LaRose's alleged target.

Garda sources said the four men and three women were in their mid-20s to late-40s. Some of them arrested hold Irish citizenship and some are from the Middle East. Converts to Islam were among them, the Irish police said.

Vilks's cartoon, drawn in 2007, prompted al-Qaida to place a $100,000 (£67,000) bounty on his head and offer a 50% bonus to anyone who slit his throat to ensure he was "slaughtered like a lamb".

At least three Swedish newspapers ? Dagens Nyheter, Expressen and Sydsvenska Dagbladet ? published the cartoon today.

The US justice department declined to comment on whether the two cases were connected.

David Kris, the head of the department's national security division, said: "The indictment, which alleges that a woman from suburban America agreed to carry out murder overseas and to provide material support to terrorists, underscores the evolving nature of the threat we face."

LaRose, who also called herself Fatima LaRose online, allegedly posted a comment on YouTube in June 2008 saying she wanted to help "the suffering Muslim people".

According to the indictment filed in a federal court in Pennsylvania she sent emails to unnamed co-conspirators offering to become a martyr as well as to use her American background to avoid detection.

The indictment accuses LaRose of agreeing in March 2009 to marry a co-conspirator from a south Asian country who was trying to obtain residency in Europe. He is alleged to have urged her to go to Sweden, find the unnamed Swedish man "and kill him". The indictment claims she tried to raise money over the internet, lure others to her cause and lied to FBI investigators.

LaRose was arrested after returning to the US in October 2009 on a charge related to the theft of a US passport, according to court documents.

If convicted on the four counts in the indictment, which was dated 4 March 2010, LaRose could face a sentence of life in prison and a fine of $1m (£670,000).

Michael Levy, the US attorney in Pennsylvania, said the case showed that terrorists were looking for Americans to join their cause. "It shatters any lingering thought that we can spot a terrorist based on appearance."

The Obama administration has grown increasingly worried about Americans and foreigners living in the US taking up the cause of anti-American militants.

Two recent cases have fuelled those concerns: the arrest of a Chicago man accused of helping plot the 2008 Mumbai attacks and an Afghan immigrant living in Colorado who pleaded guilty to plotting a bomb attack on the New York subway system.

Grenades set off in offices of World Vision humanitarian group

Attackers armed with grenades bombed the offices of an international aid group in north-west Pakistan today, killing five people working for the organisation, police said.

The attack targeted World Vision, a large Christian humanitarian group helping survivors of the 2005 Kashmir earthquake in Mansehra district.

The dead were all Pakistanis and included two women, said a police official, Mohammad Sabir.

Al-Qaida, the Taliban and allied groups are strong in north-western Pakistan, but Mansehra lies outside the tribal belt next to Afghanistan where the militants have their main bases.

Extremists have killed other people working for foreign aid groups in Pakistan and issued statements saying such organisations are working against Islam. The attacks have greatly hampered efforts to raise living standards in the desperately poor region.

Militants see the aid groups as a challenge to their authority. The aid groups often employ women and support women's rights initiatives, angering the extremists.

Many foreign aid groups set up offices in Mansehra after the 2005 earthquake, which killed about 80,000 people.

In 2008 militants in Mansehra killed four Pakistanis working for Plan International, a British-based charity that focuses on helping children.

Of course McConnell has the Democrats best interests at heart:

As Republicans work to prevent a health-care bill from reaching President Obama, they are scrambling to exploit divisions between Democrats in the House and the Senate.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned House Democrats that they would be taking a colossal risk if they approved the Senate's version of health-care legislation before the Senate had acted to remove some of the bill's most contentious provisions ...

"House Democrats will have to decide whether they want to trust the Senate to fix their political problems," McConnell said.

Note to House Democrats: working to prevent a health-care bill from reaching President Obama is the actual basis for McConnell's concern. FYI.

In the House, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:

FLOOR SCHEDULE FOR WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10, 2010

Suspensions (9 Bills):

1. H.R. 4786 - To provide authority to compensate Federal employees for the 2-day period in which authority to make expenditures from the Highway Trust Fund lapsed (Rep. Connolly - Transportation and Infrastructure)
2. H.Con.Res. 249 - Commemorating the 45th anniversary of Bloody Sunday and the role that it played in ensuring the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Rep. Lewis (GA) - Judiciary)
3. H.Res. 1081 - Supporting the goals and ideals of National Teen Dating Violence Awareness and Prevention Month (Rep. Lewis (GA) - Judiciary)
4. H.Res. 1087 - Honoring the life of John H. "Jack" Ruffin, Jr. (Rep. Barrow - Judiciary)
5. H.Res. 1115 - Expressing appreciation for the profound dedication and public service of Enrique "Kiki" Camarena on the 25th anniversary of his death (Rep. Hunter - Judiciary)
6. H.Res. 1061 - Honoring the heroic actions of Court Security Officer Stanley Cooper, Deputy United States Marshal Richard J. "Joe" Gardner, the law enforcement officers of the United States Marshals Service and Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, and the Court Security Officers in responding to the armed assault at the Lloyd D. George Federal Courthouse on January 4, 2010 (Rep. Titus - Judiciary)
7. H.R. 4506 - Bankruptcy Judgeship Act of 2010 (Rep. Cohen - Judiciary)
8. H.R. 4783 - To accelerate the income tax benefits for charitable cash contributions for the relief of the victims of the earthquake in Chile, and to extend the period from which such contributions for the relief of the victims of the earthquake in Haiti may be accelerated (Rep. Levin - Ways and Means)
9. H.R. 4573 - Debt Relief for Earthquake Recovery in Haiti Act of 2010 (Rep. Waters - Financial Services)

H.Con.Res. 248 - Afghanistan War Powers Resolution (Rep. Kucinich – Foreign Affairs) (Privileged Resolution) (Subject to a Rule)

Postponed Suspension Votes (5 Bills):

1. H.Res. 1088 - Recognizing the plight of people with albinism in East Africa and condemning their murder and mutilation (Rep. Connolly - Foreign Affairs)
2. H.Res. 1107 - Recognizing the 189th anniversary of the independence of Greece and celebrating Greek and American democracy. (Rep. Ros-Lehtinen - Foreign Affairs)
3. H.Res. 1144 - Expressing Condolences for the victims of the February 27th 2010 earthquake in Chile, as well as solidarity with and support for the Chilean people as they plan for the recovery and reconstruction for their Country (Rep. Hinojosa - Foreign Affairs)
4. H.R. 4621 - Prevent Deceptive Census Look Alike Mailings Act (Rep. Maloney - Oversight and Government Reform)
5. H.Res. 1047 - Commending The Ohio State University Buckeyes football team for its victory in the 2010 Rose Bowl (Rep. Kilroy - Education and Labor)

In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:

Convenes: 9:30am

Morning Business until 2:00pm with senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each. The Majority will control the first 30 minutes and the Republicans will control the next 30 minutes.

At 2:00pm, the Senate will resume consideration of HR4213, Tax Extenders. when the Senate resumes consideration of the bill, all post-cloture debate time will have expired and the question will be on the Baucus substitute amendment. Once the Baucus substitute is agreed to, the Senate will immediately proceed to a cloture vote on the bill, HR4213. If cloture is invoked, all post-cloture debate time will be yielded back and the Senate will proceed to vote on passage of the bill.

Fourteen suspensions on the calendar today (though they'll likely hold a few over for voting tomorrow) plus one Kucinich troop withdrawal resolution that isn't expected to pass.

On the Senate side, work is expected to wrap up on the tax extenders/UI/COBRA bill, with a cloture vote on a Baucus substitute amendment and then on the bill itself. By prior agreement, all the time-wasting usually associated with back-to-back cloture motions will be dispensed with. Huzzah.

Negotiations continue on the health insurance industry reform bill, including discussions of the preferred parliamentary procedure. Politico reported yesterday that the House may consider using a self-executing rule to deal with the passage of the main Senate bill. But you already knew that, because I reported it (with a hat tip to Jeff Davis of Transportation Weekly) on January 20th. For more discussion of what a self-executing rule is all about, see today's Open Congress. New to the story, though: House leaders were reportedly considering a provision in the rule for the bill stating that it could only be signed by the President if the Senate also passed the "fix" bill. Don't know how feasible that is, but, well, there it is.

Today's committee schedule appears below. Once again, lots of Appropriations Committee action as the budget season pace heats up.

Wednesday opinion and nutty as a a fruitcake edition. Can we talk?

Tom Friedman:

Former President George W. Bush’s gut instinct that this region craved and needed democracy was always right. It should have and could have been pursued with much better planning and execution. This war has been extraordinarily painful and costly. But democracy was never going to have a virgin birth in a place like Iraq, which has never known any such thing.

Some argue that nothing that happens in Iraq will ever justify the costs. Historians will sort that out. Personally, at this stage, I only care about one thing: that the outcome in Iraq be positive enough and forward-looking enough that those who have actually paid the price — in lost loved ones or injured bodies, in broken homes or broken lives, be they Iraqis or Americans or Brits — see Iraq evolve into something that will enable them to say that whatever the cost, it has given freedom and decent government to people who had none.

And I care about one other thing: that I don't get blamed for being a cheerleader and forever being associated with "the next six months will tell the tale".

Stanley Fish: You see? You see? I told you Bush would be back! Miss him yet?

TIME:

Beck, who is used to controlling the gravitational force of victimhood around him, kept interrupting to point out that he was a bigger target of even greater forces than Massa. "I have two unauthorized biographies coming out against me in the spring," Beck said at one point. Minutes later, Beck went even further. "Do you realize my family is at stake?" he said. "You've got a little scandal with your children in college. I've got one for all time now, because I am not going to resign. I'm not going to back down. I have come to a place where I believe at some point the system will destroy me."

"Damn, that Massa guy is nuttier than I am! He's horning in on my game!"

HuffPo:

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas warned on Tuesday night that if Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) plays a role in killing health care reform, a Democratic primary challenger would almost certainly await him in the next election.

In an appearance on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Moulitsas conveyed pointed frustration with the Ohio Democrat's pledge to oppose reform on grounds that it doesn't go far enough. He said Kucinich was practicing a "very Ralph Nader-esque approach" to politics.

The egos in Congress could light and power a small city for a hundred years.

Gawker slams HuffPo for banning some conspiracy theories but allowing others. The ones they allow harm more people than the ones they ban.

Because today, the very same Huffington Post published this wonderful post from dangerous nutcase Jenny McCarthy about how autism is caused by vaccines and can be cured with experimental treatments that the established medical community doesn't want you to know about. We can only assume that as soon as the editors discover this conspiratorial nonsense, they will promptly remove it.

Back to reality, the one where Glenn Beck and Jenny McCarthy don't have a platform to prove HL Mencken true ("A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier."):

NY Times:

An unusual study done in 49 remote Hutterite farming colonies in western Canada has provided the surest proof yet that giving flu shots to schoolchildren protects a whole community from the disease.

Here's the spring break letter from CDC and the American College Health Association.

With the 2010 "Spring Break" coming up and large numbers of students expected to travel both domestically and internationally, getting vaccinated against 2009 H1N1 influenza is especially important.

Michael Gerson: Because of health reform, Obama's Presidency is doomed. If he succeeds, he's a radical liberal. If he fails, he's a weak loser. Since he's not a conservative, there are no other choices. Wait... let me check the WaPo conspiracy theory guidelines before I hit publish. No... we're good.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MEPs will go to the Court of Justice if the EU does not reject ACTA rules, including cutting off users from the Internet "gradually" if caught stealing content.

Entry posted to my new blog.

James Gosling sent out a reminder asking people to Submit your JavaOne abstracts! Yes, JavaOne is indeed happening, and if you want to participate via presenting a session, you only have until Sunday night (US Pacific time) to submit your proposal.

In James's words:

[In] case you hadn't noticed :-) despite the recent transition, JavaOne is indeed happening. The call for papers went out a while ago, and it's it's about to close, so submit your proposal today!. It promises to be a giant year with JavaOne being just a few blocks from Oracle OpenWorld. That few blocks should provide a gap of sanity (opportunity?) between the Geeks and the BizTypes. San Francisco will be bursting at the seams.

I expect this year's JavaOne to have more of a developer-centric feel than has been the case in recent years. The call for papers page says:

We expect JavaOne 2010 to surpass its well-established reputation as one of the most valuable and informative weeks of technical education, debate, and exchange of the year. This year, the conference curriculum is going back to its roots -- 100% Java technology and the related ecosystems. So share your knowledge and expertise as a JavaOne speaker.

And here's the description of "what attendees want" -- that is, who the target audience is for JavaOne presenters, the audience Oracle is trying to get to attend this year's JavaOne:

Attendees typically have intermediate-to-advanced Java programming skills. Our attendee surveys have indicated most of them want talks that deepen their practical knowledge, including best practices and solutions. The most popular talks are rich in technical detail, and usually include best practices, proven solutions, code samples, and/or demos that show how to apply Java technology to real-world projects. This year, we are particularly looking for interesting end-to-end application and integration use cases.

To me, this says that JavaOne (which will also be the site for Oracle Develop) will indeed be the place where the geeks hang out, while Oracle OpenWorld will draw more of the management and business folk -- as James indicates. Of course, a lot of people will visit both venues, and probably an even greater number will at least venture into the street walkway (which may have a tent?) between the conference venues, where they'll be able to mix with both their associates and counterparts.

If you'd like to present at JavaOne, see the criteria for submissions and also the 2010 topic areas. And be sure to get your proposal submitted by 11:59 Pacific (US) time, Sunday night, March 14.

In other Java Today news, Alexis Moussine-Pouchkine presents GlassFish without the IDE (quick survival guide):

A lot of people experiment GlassFish for the first time via an IDE (most likely NetBeans, but maybe also with Eclipse) and feel a bit lost when it comes to use GlassFish without the tool driving it for them. So here are a few (mostly basic) CLI asadmin hints for GlassFish v3...

Janice Heiss pointed me to Ed Ort's new article Deploying RIAs in Mixed Environments:

Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) ? browser-based applications that present the kinds of engrossing user interfaces (UIs) and content previously found only in desktop applications ? are becoming increasingly popular. In fact, for many developers, the browser is becoming the preferred deployment target for their applications. A lot of this increased popularity is due to the ubiquity of the Internet. But it's also due to improved uniformity in the way different browsers handle RIAs...

In the Weblogs, I posted a blog about something I saw on Twitter, rkusterer: Time to Join the NetBeans Community Testing Programs!:

On Twitter, there was a tweet from @javatools asking "Want to help testing NetBeans and have your name included in the NetBeans source code?" and pointing us to rkusterer's Time to Join the NetBeans Community Testing Programs! page: "The NetBeans Team is pleased to announce the return of its two community testing programs, NetCAT and NetFIX, for the NetBeans IDE 6.9 release cycle. NetBeans 6.9 feature highlights include in short: * NetBeans Platform OSGi interoperability; * Many enhancements in Editor; * Improved Java FX tooling ..."

Jean-Francois Bonbhel presents a JUG-AFRICA Cooperation plan and agenda:

There is my proposal for JUG-AFRICA agenda. Everyone is free to comment and add interesting ideas. I will detail each point in my blog later. * Continue to affiliate JUGs and share our experience with new JUGs; * Elect a president and a vice president (last week of april 2010); * Increase our visibility by both ways internal and external (very important)...

Jan Haderka shows how to create a Mobile Friendly Link:

Last time we looked at writing command and shortening the URLs using simple TinyURL API. This time, lets try to take this one step furter and generate URLs that are mobile-users friendly, i.e. URLs that can be easily recognized and processed by various mobile devices. Such are urls in QCode or DataMatrix scan codes. I'm sure almost everybody have seen those somewhere already, be it on printouts or on the actual websites. In difference to the classic bar code QCode or DataMatrix are rectangular...

In the Forums, pmartin8 wants to apply a Jaxb marshal without namespace: Hello, When I marshall my object with JAXB I get a namespace as a prefix on the first Element of my XML. I want to avoid this... how can I do that? Tanx!

In the Mobicents Users forum, scottjg has a problem with an EventRouter executor lock: Hi, I encounter problem firing events from RA to SLEE. Events which are fired in one activity which has long live time, from given point in time hadn't delivered to services (SBB). I change EventRouterImpl log level do debug and for...

moorix has questions about JXTA shell -- basic steps: Hi all, as a newbie to JXTA project I've tried to run some peers on localhost using the JXTA shell app. Trying all possible shell commands to join default peer group, publish peer adv etc. I'm not able to find any other peers in peer group.

Our Spotlight this week is the work of our friend Felipe Gaúcho, who suddenly passed away on Friday, March 5. Felipe was a CEJUG founder and leader, a Java evangelist, and a long-time java.net collaborator. The self-description he wrote for java.net: "Felipe Gaúcho works as senior software engineer at Netcetera AG in Switzerland. He is a well known Brazilian JUG leader and open-source evangelist. Felipe works with Java since its early versions and has plans to keep that Java tradition as it is. When he is not coding, he prefers to listen reggae and travel around with his lovely wife Alena and his son Rodrigo."

Our current java.net Poll asks What's your view of Scala's future? Voting will be open until Friday.

We just published a new java.net Feature Article, Dibyendu Roy's Rethinking Multi-Threaded Design Principles; in the emerging multicore/multiprocessor world, multi-threaded programming is critical, in my view. We're also featuring Has JDBC Kept up with Enterprise Requirements? by Jesse Davis; in the article, Jesse invites us to look beyond Type 4 architecture to address the latest requirements of the enterprise Java ecosystem. And, Adhir Mehta's Java Tech article, Web Service Simulatino Using Servlets also remains in the Featured Articles section of the java.net home page.

Current and upcoming Java Events:

• March 8-13: JavaEE Training Philippines
• March 16-19: Java Posse Roundup 2010
• March 17-19: TheServerSide Java Symposium 2010
• March 24-25, Hyderabab, India: Tech Days | Hyderabad, India
• March 25-26: Agile Testing for Java Developers
• March 29-31, Pasig City, Philippines: Spring Training Philippines
• April 5, Dallas, TX, US: Java EE6 Road Show: Free EE6 and Glass Fish V3 Seminar
• April 8-9, St. Petersburg, Russia: Tech Days | St. Petersburg, Russia
• April 12-16, Pasig City, Philippines: Java Training Philippines
• April 26-30, Pasig City, Philippines: JavaEE Training Philippines
• April 30 - May 2, Reston, VA, US: 2010 Northern Virginia Software Symposium: Spring Edition
• May 3-8: JAX 2010
• May 10-14, Redwood City, CA, US: Android Training
• May 21-23, St. Louis, MO, US: 2010 Gateway Software Symposium
• June 4-5, Dallas, TX, US: 2010 Lone Star Software Symposium: Dallas Edition
• June 14-17, Denver, CO, US: UberConf 2010

Registered users can submit event listings for the java.net Events Page using our events submission form. All submissions go through an editorial review before being posted to the site.

Archives and Subscriptions: This blog is delivered weekdays as the Java Today RSS feed. Also, once this page is no longer featured as the front page of java.net it will be archived along with other past issues in the java.net Archive.

-- Kevin Farnham
O'Reilly Media
Twitter: @kevin_farnham

Vsftpd is one of the most secure and fastest FTP servers for Linux. Usually vsftpd is configured to work with system users. This document describes how to install a vsftpd server that uses virtual users from a MySQL database instead of real system users. This is much more performant and allows to have thousands of ftp users on a single machine.

http://www.howtoforge.com/virtual-hosting-with-vsftpd-and-mysql-on-debian-lenny

This guide explains how to set up WebDAV with lighttpd on an Ubuntu 9.10 server. WebDAV stands for Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning and is a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol that allow users to directly edit files on the lighttpd server so that they do not need to be downloaded/uploaded via FTP. Of course, WebDAV can also be used to upload and download files.

http://www.howtoforge.com/how-to-set-up-webdav-with-lighttpd-on-ubuntu-9.10

FBReader is an e-book reader. It currently works on the Sharp Zaurus, Siemens Simpad with Opensimpad ROM, Nokia Internet Tablet (Maemo platform), Archos PMA430, Motorola E680i/A780/A1200 smartphones, PepperPad 3, Asus Eee PC,IRex iLiad, UMPC, and desktop computers running Linux, Windows XP/Vista, or FreeBSD. It supports several e-book formats: epub, plucker, palmdoc, zTXT, HTML, CHM, fb2, TCR (psion text), OEB, OpenReader, RTF, non-DRM'ed Mobipocket, and plain text.

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While the update process is inspired by the GPLv3 update, the objectives are far less ambitious: Mozilla would like to smooth various rough edges without making major changes to the license. They hope to have the process complete - after releasing three drafts for comments - by November of this year.